


denoument

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Category: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: Gen, ReunionFic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet reunion occurs between friends on the moon of Endor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	denoument

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cthulhu_with_a_fez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthulhu_with_a_fez/gifts).



> Today is the magnificent cthulhu-with-a-fez‘s birthday, and naturally I needed to write a fic in her honor. Since Star Wars is her fandom du jour, Star Wars fic was necessarily on the menu. This has, I'm sure, been done to death by people more comfortable writing in the SW universe than I am, but I hope it will entertain nonetheless.

The celebration on Endor lasts for hours, as the sun slowly-slowly slips below the horizon of the large moon. Ewoks and Rebellion fighters alike feast and dance and talk, and out across the galaxy, news of the Emperor’s death and the defeat of the Imperial fleet spreads from system to system in an information relay the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Palpatine’s rise decades earlier.

Most of the Rebellion forces have returned to their base of operations to make reports, but a cadre of pilots, Lando included, land on the planet to rendezvous with the surface team. They quickly get swept up in the festive atmosphere, men and women and several people of any of the many additional genders some species can boast, all coming together in celebration as readily as they did in war.

Han stays in orbit around Leia throughout the afternoon and into the evening. She circulates through the growing crowd, shaking hands, offering condolences to the friends of pilots who lost their lives today, commending her comrades for their bravery. It’s amazing to watch her as she floats around, lifting spirits when needed and spreading a feeling of camaraderie and joy everywhere she goes. He’s seen her as a soldier, a fierce fighter who lives and breathes the idea of _never say die_ , and he’s seen her as a leader, practically a little general with braided hair and fire in her blood, but tonight he witnesses a side of her she’s had to set aside for some time. She is every inch the princess, every inch the ambassador, and it’s fascinating.

But he finds everything about her fascinating, after all.

It’s late when a lone figure in black emerges from the dark beyond the trees and steps into the dim light of the Ewoks’ fires. The only reason Han notices him immediately is because Leia had been watching the place where he emerges for roughly five minutes before he appeared.

“Luke!” she cries, launching herself off the log where they had been sitting and running to embrace her brother (her brother? _seriously?_ he’s still having a hard time processing that).

Luke returns her hug fervently, then breaks away to clap Han on the shoulder; he’s having none of that and drags Luke over for a hug of his own. From the minute Luke broke away from the rest of the surface team, Han had been plagued by an unsettling feeling that he might never see him again, and even Leia’s assurances that Luke had survived the destruction of the Death Star hadn’t completely eradicated his unease.

There’s a quiet intensity about Luke when he pulls away, something weighing heavily on his mind.

“What about Vader?” Leia asks, and Han almost misses how her tongue trips over the name.

Luke shakes his head sadly. “He saved me. He killed the Emperor, but… he was too badly injured.”

Leia lets out a soft breath and nods, and long looks are shared between the three of them. There’s so much more to be said, but without speaking a word, they all seem to agree that now isn’t the time for heavy conversation. That can wait until later.

Even if either of the others had an inclination to talk through the fallout of today’s events, though, Han is too busy staring back and forth between Luke and Leia, trying to see the resemblance between them. Luke is so fair and Leia, with her brown hair and hypnotic dark eyes, hardly seems like she could be his sister.

But then Luke smiles, and _there it is_ , there’s the resemblance.

“You two have settled things between you, then?” Luke says, and although it’s phrased as a question, it really isn’t one. He knows. Through some kind of Force Jedi mumbo-jumbo, he _knows_.

“You’re not gonna play the protective brother card on me now, are you?” he ventures, mostly joking.

Leia scoffs, but Luke laughs softly, a tone more subdued than Han’s used to hearing from him. “So Leia told you.”

Han nods. “It’s hard to believe,” he says. “I didn’t peg you for siblings.”

“Twins, actually,” Leia informs him. “Separated at birth.”

There’s a whole lot more to that story, and Han’s still trying to wrap his head around the ramifications of all of this… but now isn’t the time.

“Well, enough about that,” he says. “This is a party, let’s act like it, huh?”

The pair of them grin up at him with those identical smiles, and together, arm in arm, they walk out of the shadows toward the fire, where a crowd waits to welcome the last Jedi knight back from battle.


End file.
